Manipulatives are hand held objects usually made from wood or plastic that are used to teach math and are most often used in elementary school. When students use math manipulatives, they can literally show you how they solved a math problem and they may have more success explaining how they got their answer using manipulatives than when using traditional paper and pencil. For example: A student may be able to use fraction strips to show how 2/4 + 2/4 = 1 whole, but on paper say that 2/4 + 2/4 = 4/8. Manipulatives create a representation that can take math number sense from a concrete level to a more a more abstract one.
Just like with physical manipulatives, you can use virtual manipulatives as a math center. Here are some online resources for finding and using digital manipulatives:
Math Playground Math Manipulatives
Solve math problems with games and digital manipulatives for grades K-6
Utah State's National LIbrary of Virtual Manipulatives
Manipulatives are divided by grade level and type of math, such as Number Operations, Measurement, Algebra, Data Analysis and Probability. You need to download Java for these to work.
Hartcourt School Math Activities has online manipulatives for grades 3-5. Number Sense, Algebra and Functions, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics, Data Analysis, and Probability
Manipulatives are hand held objects usually made from wood or plastic that are used to teach math and are most often used in elementary school. When students use math manipulatives, they can literally show you how they solved a math problem and they may have more success explaining how they got their answer using manipulatives than when using traditional paper and pencil. For example: A student may be able to use fraction strips to show how 2/4 + 2/4 = 1 whole, but on paper say that 2/4 + 2/4 = 4/8. Manipulatives create a representation that can take math number sense from a concrete level to a more a more abstract one.
Just like with physical manipulatives, you can use virtual manipulatives as a math center. Here are some online resources for finding and using digital manipulatives:
_manipulatives.html
these to work.
PreK -2 Manipulatives
Grades 3 - 5 Manipulatives
Grades 6 - 8 Manipulatives
Grades 9 - 12 Manipulatives
mathematics/ebookassets/vmf/VMF-Interface.html
gr3/index_2004.html
http://www.eduplace.com/math/hmm/tools/tt_1.html
Grade 2
http://www.eduplace.com/math/hmm/tools/tt_2.html
Grade 3
http://www.eduplace.com/math/hmm/tools/tt_3.html
Grade 4
http://www.eduplace.com/math/hmm/tools/tt_4.html
Grade 5
http://www.eduplace.com/math/hmm/tools/tt_5.html
Grade 6
http://www.eduplace.com/math/hmm/tools/tt_6.html